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Nationbuilder VIII
The Basics: Started on 20 December, 2015, by DM Walter. A number of new innovations were implemented in this version, including: * A 5th "Espionage Action" * Pre-made national archetypes * A set time limit * Victory Points * Secret Objectives * Revamped Culture System * Lack of Navies * Income sources tied to the land * No DM events Similarly, a number of changes were made to wealth and defensive tech. The full patch notes can be found below: Patch Notes: Most of the stuff is the same as you are used to. However, we do have some extra mechanics to cover that will influence how the game is played. ANONYMITY: If you reveal to another player who you are, or who someone else is, and I find out about it, I will remove you from the game. Anonymity makes the game unique and fun. Don’t be that guy. You know who’s playing, but you don’t know who’s who. You can, if you wish, try to disguise your writing to look like another player. On your decoy facebook accounts you may of course message other players and such. SECRET OBJECTIVES: Every player has three of them. Fulfilling these helps you win the game. Even if you figure out who another player is, you don’t know their secret objectives. YOUR SECRET FIFTH ACTION: Every turn you message me privately and give me your fifth action—an espionage action. What can you do with espionage? Disband or rout other players’ armies. Assassinate important leaders. See a history of another player’s espionage actions. Negate an enemy’s defensive bonuses. You’re your army temporary bonuses. Disrupt income generation for an opponent. See another player’s stats (you lazy fuck), Incite rebellion in a province. Reverse-engineer technology. Nullify another player’s espionage action taking place on the same turn. Basically anything underhanded you can think of. If you roll a nat 1 on an espionage action, though, expect to be found out and have to deal with the potentially disastrous diplomatic repercussions. THE MAP: The map is covered in two kinds of symbols. The little black circles everywhere are income-generating spots, be it villages or mines or so on. When you make an income roll, you add more of these spots to your territory. Each one gives 1 income. You can increase your income, but this also creates valuable provinces that can be taken away from you. These provinces need protecting. This is where castles come in. The squares on the map are castles. Provinces normally take a turn to take over. Provinces with castles take two turns. In addition, provinces with castles get a +2 to army-raising rolls. Finally, you only get defense bonuses in provinces that have castles in them. A standard castle provides a +3 defense bonus. To make a castle, all you have to do is pay fifty gold and dedicate a turn action to it. This action is an automatic success and builds a castle in a province. You can’t “stack” more than one castle in a province, but you can improve castle defense bonuses. ARMIES: Armies cost 8 income this game, not 10. Provinces that are disconnected from your nation’s main body cannot raise armies. Armies move at a rate of one province a turn. Movement over mountains slows this by half. You can raise armies in a province equal to the amount of income dots in that province—less profitable provinces can’t raise as many armies. The maximum amount of army raising rolls you can make in a turn is, as always, 4. Offensive bonuses no longer exist. DRAFTING: In an emergency, you can raise armies instantaneously by drafting your own citizens to fight. These are turn actions that are automatic successes. Each army you raise like this subtracts one from your culture score (drafts piss your people off), so use it wisely, because culture is much more important in this game. CULTURE: Culture is harder to get than before. With a finite turn limit, culture points now serve as victory points. The winner of the game will be the nation with the most culture that has fulfilled the most of its secret objectives. If two nations are tied for this position, then the one of them with the most provinces is declared the winner. If they have the same number of provinces, then the one of them that holds the imperial capital of Wu is declared the winner. The old imperial capital is itself worth one culture point to whoever holds it. Culture no longer determines how fast you are conquered. In addition, military score, not culture score, now determines army movement priority. REBELLION: Now is less tied to culture. Has a very, very small chance of happening to a player each turn. They are really not that common. If you keep getting rebellions, most likely another player is secretly sowing dissent in your provinces. Devote some espionage actions to finding out the likely culprit, then invade him. WEALTH: 10 gold for a +1. A roll can’t be improved beyond a +5 in this way. PAST CONFLICT: When posting your fluff, you get to pick up to four nations that your culture has had a past history of violence with. You get a +2 military bonus against these nations. Be wary: doing this may clue other people in as to your secret objectives, and selecting four nations to be enemies with will sour your relations with four other players at the start. NAVIES: hahaha The Setting: The powerful and omnipresent Empire of Wu has fallen into decline over the last 2 centuries, and fragmented into seven nation states. THE RACES: Humans: you know 'em, you love 'em. The vast, vast, vast majority of your citizens are humans. Wailong: Human children unlucky enough to be born on the 13th of May. They are grotesque, stupid things--with three legs, six arms, three heads, twisted, tree-trunk chests, and the mentality of a six year old child. Despite this, they are good at fighting and are often drafted as soldiers or laborers. Under the Empire of Wu, Wailong were employed as shock troops to sometimes devastating effect. All of your nations have a healthy reserve of Wailong. Wizards: It is widely known that the seventh son of a seventh son or the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter will become a magic-user. In Wu, these individuals are few and far between--maybe one or two per kingdom. They are quickly snatched up and given positions of power at court. Shi: The Shi are even rarer than wizards, so rare that no one even knows how it is they come about. Identical to humans, they are functionally immortal and can be killed only by a black iron blade. They are not innately magically gifted like the wizards, but they can learn magic simply through being alive for such a long time and eventually figuring it out. This applies not just to magic, but to all skills. Shi have an intense personal magnetism surrounding them--people innately want to be with them, and they often rise through the ranks of society to leadership positions. These are people of great destiny, and can be heroes or dictators. They tend to keep themselves secret: in the Wu Empire, Shi or people suspected of being Shi were killed. THE MAGIC: Think less fireballs, more subtle stuff. Want to change your face? Wizards can do that. See events happening in closed rooms miles and miles away? Wizards. Conjure an object from thin air? FUCKING wizards. With such a toolkit at their disposal, wizards make excellent spies for an enterprising kingdom, and if caught they have been known to have been ransomed for entire provinces. THE TECH: Bows! Chariots! Infantry blocks! Dysentery! Excitement! The Nations: 1. GREEN: A loose coalition of warlords and princely states that have finally settled their internal bickering. 2. BROWN: A fledgling republic that has inexplicably survived the turbulent international climate. 3. BLUE: A formerly-oppressed ethnic group nestled away in inhospitable mountains. 4. YELLOW: A pervasive theocracy spreading a new religion and new technology from the west. 5. PURPLE: The last remnants of the imperial line of Wu, determined to preserve tradition and exert influence once again. 6. GREY: Foreigners from beyond the eastern shores who have learned to fortify in a way Wu has never seen before. 7. ORANGE: A figurehead government masks a massive crime syndicate.